The Exhumation - Danton is comforted by Camille
by 5aira
Summary: In the wake of Gabrielle's death Danton rejects Camille's help. Distraught, he decides to have her body exhumed so that a sculptor can model a bust. Unnoticed Camille follows him to the graveyard where they effect a reconciliation.


**The Desmoulins' apartment**

**Just before midnight: February 11****th**** 1793 **

Camille sits awkwardly on their chaise longue; he is shaking ever so slightly and his long thin hands with their delicate tracery of violet veins reach out towards his wife. Lucile wraps his icy fingers around the tisane of fresh herbs she has brewed for him; it doesn't seem to achieve any prolonged improvement in his condition but he tells her it eases the pain. He tells her this with such a look of gratitude and dread mingled in the wicked black eyes she loves, that Lucile has made it an article of faith never to run out of herbs; and she serves them, as a republican sacrament, in the fine glass engraved with their initials…...

A noise at the door, Jeannine comes in; she has been assisting at Gabrielle's confinement and they have all known that there was no happy event pending there. Now the moment has come. Lucile Desmoulins, twenty three years old and in the pink of health, has no personal experience of death [never fear, fate has that well in hand] but she knows that Gaby is dying and she has sworn to be with her.

She knows too that the deathbed will be no place for Camille. An inexplicable misery had overwhelmed him during her own straightforward confinement: A misery which only began to lift as he fell hopelessly in love with their baby: Helpless in the face of Horace's mewling charms, Camille could be found in the dead of night; whispering to the baby as they looked up at the stars and down into the street; but to Lucile's eyes he never quite regained the euphoric confidence he had shown in the first few weeks of their marriage.

Sometimes Lucile feels as if she gave birth to two children; Horace, the gurgling centre of all adult attention and a needy neglected child who had initially been so drawn to the assured self-confidence of her mother. Unable to help herself she places his care above the baby's.

'Stay here Camille, stay here, drink your tisane and talk to Horace for a while, we will let you know'

Camille has known for a long time, longer than anyone else except maybe Gabrielle; He sensed death in the swollen extremities of her soft body even as he silently conspired with her to make her passing easier. Now it only remains for the unbearable fact to be confirmed…..

_The Desmoulins' sitting room is bright and warm and empty; the tisane, abandoned on the table, has grown cold; outside the street is dark, damp and disinterested. _

**In the street**

Camille finds himself standing by Georges-Jacques' door, wet and bewildered; how is he here? He has no recollection of leaving the apartment. The raindrops falling on his eyelashes blur his already weakened vision. He wonders what he should be doing while Gabrielle is dying

Yesterday, Citizen Desmoulins, had summoned one last shred of composure to ensure that word was sent to Citizen Danton about his wife's condition. One minion had found another minion and both had sped with alacrity to do his bidding. Tonight the starveling youth whose entire security dwelt in the Danton household has returned with a vengeance, and stands quivering, desperately intent on keeping control of his bowels long enough to maintain a vigil for Georges, while his wife dies.

Camille thinks, or rather he imagines, that Georges will expect him to have been present at the bedside, able to describe Gabrielle's last moments to her grieving husband. He is tortured by the conviction that his friend will reproach him for his cowardice.

Back in the apartment Horace starts to cry; a lusty wail of hunger and rage. Jeannine will rush to his side, fuss him and feed him; she would like to do that and more for Camille but knows the hope is worse than forlorn. And as Camille listens he hears, from behind the door, another baby crying, a dying assassin's cry, weak and feeble; and from somewhere else, far away in time and place, can he hear another cry? A pleading supplication unanswered and unminded so many times that eventually it was left too late.

The door opens and bangs shut. From his place in the weeping shadows Camille sees Angelique, her shawl cast over her face. She stares straight through him; he feels his grip on the smooth flat cliff face of his existence eroding. Can he still cling on?

'My little girl – she's dead'

Here is an opportunity; Camille knows what should be done. He should take the bereft mother in his arms, comfort her, go into the house of death and take charge. That is what Georges would expect him to do; what a man would do; Camille wants to do all of that so very much; but the pain of the unminded child, left to cry uncomforted, has delayed the development of more than speech.

So he allows Angelique to stumble blindly past him down the street. Horace's howls subside to a satisfied chuckle and the wail of the new baby fades to a whimper and is extinguished. Camille feels the chill of the rain seep into his bones and an even colder shame saps his spirit.

He turns uncertainly away from the door, towards the glowing lights of the theatre – where there is always a card game in the dressing room and where one or other of the actresses will be warmly appreciative of his teasing skills with tongue and teeth – such a gratifying change from the vigorous attentions lavished on them by their more masculine admirers.

_The unminded child is seeking relief from his pain…_

**Cimitière Saint Marcel**

**Dusk: February 16****th**** 1793 **

_It has rained all day and as darkness falls in St Marcel's burying ground each drop becomes a rapier of ice, piercing Camille's body. He is alone again, waiting in shadows. The crepuscular mist provides the only mercy for Camille; this is a vision he does not want to see._

Sadly there is no such mercy for his ears; the scraping of metal on gravel; the panting horror of the gravedigger shifting the same soil twice in a week; the jarring shudder as the pitiless iron spade strikes the mahogany coffin. But unbearable beyond all that is the sound of Citizen Danton weeping. No, not weeping, the word is not sufficiently animal for Danton; rather he is howling. He believes he is alone in his grief; he has taken steps to ensure that no loved one comes near him, and now he has allowed his agony to possess him.

Camille is familiar with pain of all sorts, some he even welcomes, but the bitter rejection meted out by Georges, the cruel repudiation delivered just when Camille had summoned the courage to stand in solidarity beside his friend in this unspeakable quest has all but destroyed him.

'Did you imagine I would need help from a cheap, emasculated little Palais Royal slut like you Camille? Your own brothers are fighting, in Maastricht, the Vendee. There are soldiers dying for the revolution in Flanders, they don't write newspapers Camille, some of them can't read; but all of them are men, and what are you Camille?'

Now, unminded, Camille has followed Georges and Deseine, the sculptor, to the cemetery where only five days ago, he had overseen the funeral of Gabrielle Danton. Acting with unusual assurance Citizen Desmoulins overruled his wife's desire for a grand ceremony, certain that his friend would consent to the quick and simple burial so desired by the stricken parents. It was Citizen Desmoulins who, with the tenderest care, ensured that the tiny assassin was placed in his mother's arms just as she had wanted; it was Citizen Desmoulins who insisted that Gabrielle's devastated and devoted band of domestics should join the mourners.

But it was Camille who insisted that Lucile and Horace retreat immediately afterwards to Bourg La Republique; and Camille who refused all of Annette's attempts to persuade him to join them.

The lynch pin of Camille's existence has been withdrawn and he has fallen back on the routine of the hungry eighties, following Georges as he once dogged his father's footsteps as a three year old back in Guise. Unseen, Camille has trailed Georges to the graveside where the sculptor is waiting to sketch whatever may remain of Gaby after five days inside the coffin.

As they raise the casket, Camille's strength fails him, leaning heavily against the tree he begins to slither groundward, but perhaps fate is on his side today. Deseine insists that they carry their burden into the shed. He is working for a combination of money and fear and he really has no intention of producing anything resembling the poor threadbare creature which he knows he will find when the coffin is opened. Luckily for him Citizen Desmoulins has quietly provided him with an old drawing done by his sister-in-law, and it is this that he will use as a base for the bust commissioned by Citizen Danton. He makes a few lightning sketches to satisfy the tribune and leaves as quickly as is humanly possible.

Before the gravedigger leaves the shed to go back to his lodge, he extricates the now silent Danton's hands from the shrouded body. Reverently, because he has heard she was a loving mother and a kind employer, he rests Gabrielle's poor body back in its sumptuous coffin. He will allow Citizen Danton to say his last farewells alone, and return to reinter the coffin later; maybe the rain will have stopped by then.

So…..

Camille's time is coming; and this time he will not allow himself to be incapacitated by the agonised feelings of fear, hope, love and loss that flood his entire being; he will not!.

He will not!

The shed door opens again, and to Camille's eyes the man who emerges is even more alone than he is himself. This is Camille's moment. This is why he has forced himself to wake up alone for the last five days in physical pain and mental torment.

This is to be Camille's expiation for the day only he knows about; the day back in April '89 when he watched from behind the door as his friend crumbled, torn apart by the grief of losing his firstborn, shut out by Gabrielle's pain, unwilling to burden Camille, but alone in his chambers racked by sobs more terrifying to Camille than any he has ever shed for himself.

On that day Camille had turned away, the pain of his friend an unbearable hurt. On that day he sought to assuage his agony as he did after Gabrielle's death. That day has provided him with another shameful memory which eats away at his soul: It will be different this time.

It will be different.

As his life force dwindles Camille is intent on nurturing a mental stoicism. If you could look into his soul you would see the naissance of the man who in less than a year will refuse to cease publication of his own death warrant. Look now though, and you will see a hesitant, shivering wraith stepping out from the yew trees and approaching the massive figure of his friend. Georges does appear to be in need of some sort of assistance – bits of soil, fabric, who knows what, cling to his coat where he has clutched what he still thinks of as Gaby to his manly bosom.

Georges shows no surprise when Camille steps out of the shadows and delicately brushes the detritus from his coat. Five days of planning have provided Camille with his opening gambit, he has written it and memorised it but even so the stammer is very bad.

'She was very beautiful Georges; we did everything just as you would have wanted it done'

Georges looks at Camille's pale, eager face and is briefly transported back to a lonely, icy attic room and an encounter with Camille which has been all but obliterated by politics, war, women and children. The remembrance softens his expression momentarily; the first time he has offered Camille anything other than contemptuous cruelty since he returned from Flanders. The expression gives Camille his first small sign of success; they are walking now, through the avenue of yew trees towards the gate. Camille has been thinking about their shared past too, it provides him with his next sally;

'You know, I was always resentful of how gentle she was with Elysee, but now I keep thinking about it'

Georges-Jacques stops abruptly; they are very close to an ancient yew, the gnarled bark looming darker than its surroundings.

'Do you really Camille?' there is a little menace here, 'Is that really what you keep thinking about?' Camille tenses; Georges continues;

'Do you know what I keep thinking about Camille? Do you? I keep thinking about that afternoon in our apartment, with my wife on her knees and you gasping your way to glory, pushing your little cock down her throat. You never opened your eyes once, I couldn't be sure then, but I've wondered since, whether you really knew which of us was sucking you off?'

One gigantic hand pushes Camille so hard that he is pinned against the tree, the bark imprinting its pattern against his spine.

_He is not frightened_. At last in their relationship actions are going to speak louder than words.

Georges' scarred mouth finds Camille's lips. They have rarely kissed like this, although they have done other, less intimate things. Camille needs no second bidding. His skilful tongue insinuates itself between his friend's lips; there is the very faintest gasp but no recoil. Moving deep inside his friend's mouth Camille can taste the wine that is failing to blunt his pain. As Georges' lips part wider to allow Camille more licence their tongues meet; how strange given the discrepancy in their oratorical powers that Camille's tongue is so much more practised and persuasive than Georges'. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Camille feels a gentle sense of superiority. He is in the ascendant here, he has stilled the storm of grieving and he senses a gentle phantom gliding away lightly through the trees, a tiny scrap of nothing clutched to its breast, a small scrap of nothing led by the hand.

Camille moves his hands to Georges' shoulders and slowly withdraws his tongue; he feels a shudder rip through his friend's body. His tongue continues its work, tracing inside the sensuous lips and exploring the scar that divides them, probing the roughly healed split in the skin.

Their arousal is self-evident but Camille's temporarily discovered confidence and Georges' shaken state cause both men to pull away from each other; this is not, after all the Palais Royal, or even their old law chambers.

Georges looks deathly weary and Camille's black eyes shine with a compassion one does not immediately associate with the starveling youth or the unminded child. Both will dispute possession of his soul over the course of the next few months, but for the moment he is experiencing an epiphany of control. It is, perhaps, a token gift of fate; a futile attempt to compensate for what has gone before and what is still to come.

He waits for Georges to speak; he knows he will; but the great voice trembles, almost faltering;

'I can't sleep Camille, I'm frightened to go home; She's angry and she blames me and she's right; sometimes that little girl from upstairs comes down and I let her stay, but she's angry too, and she blames me too and she's right'

Words come to Camille without effort, for the moment his tongue is freed and his mind set at ease by the vision in the trees.

'She isn't angry Georges, she wanted all her friends to help you and she did everything she could to make sure that would happen. Our apartment is empty; Lucile and Horace have gone to Annette. Come back with me'

From his lodge the gravedigger smiles at the incongruous sight of the frail, delicate deputy comforting the massive tribune as the two citizens make their way out of the gate; that's a true friend, he thinks to himself, turning up unannounced to a horror like that, Citizen Danton is a lucky man.

The gravedigger thinks far truer than he knows.

_They do not share a word as they take the narrow path to Camille's apartment, but now both men are remembering that icy encounter, long ago in the cheerless attic._


End file.
